Ears Vs Eyes Part III

All those years of doing it from the records - Ears for me

Can I have one ear and one eye :D Seriously though, ears for me as well.

my left foot.

Ahhh the old left food method, very frowned upon in most circles - care to tell us about it Dogbite? :lol:

when first learning guitar and wanting to play the songs on the record I used my ear. I found it easier when the recorded song wasn't in Eb. some were.
knowing a few chords, I'd listen closely; often picking up the needle and moving it back. yeah, it was all analog.
my Left Foot, is a fantastic movie. The kid could only move his left foot. I can relate when playing guitar.

fleaa I always wondered exactly how you learn a song from youtube unless it's some instructional video because all the music video's I've ever seen show you about 10 secs of the guitar player to actually see where his hands are..

For me it gets really annoying trying to do that.

I don't ever use instructional videos...... (well - rarely) - I worked out that Misty just from watching someone play it - and listening to it. I downloaded the video from youtube onto my computer - listened, transcribed in tab - and hey presto after about 2 days of work (approximately 4 or 5 hours) I had the thing done. But I had a really big need to have it done and done the way he played it - so that's why I persisted. I probably would have worked it out faster but I don't always trust myself and double check over and over and over and over and over......................................... :roll: :lol:

But are you really using your ears more than eyes. Unless the Misty video is different all the videos of someone playing (especially a band) there are very few actual shots of the guitarists hands and if that they only last a couple secs hardly enough to see what's going on through the whole song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rl22zxN2DaA

Go watch for youself..... I started using my eyes, by the end I was trusting my ears more than my eyes.

I haven't participated in this thread because it's not a choice I'd want to make.

For learning songs, if I have the music, I'd rather read, but reading only gets you so far in loose forms of music like rock/pop/jazz/country so the ears have to come into play. On the other hand, ears only get you so far and there are times when you need your eyes, whether it is tab, notation, or another musician saying, "Here's how you play this one". And how many people can play the guitar without at least occasionally looking at the fretboard with our eyes? So to me the choice is not a choice, whether you read music or not, you need both.

If you are trying to justify not being able to read music, this is not a valid question. You don't have to be able to read your native language, but it sure comes in handy when reading recipe you never tried before in a cookbook or discussing topics like this on an Internet forum.

But it got me thinking. Not as a musician, but just as a human being. I didn't dwell on this, but occasionally it would pop up out of my subconscious and entertain my conscious mind for a while.

If I were to come down with a disease, accident, latent birth defect or whatever that either rendered me totally blind or totally deaf, which would be worse? Conversely, which sense is more important?

First impression was it's more important to see than to hear, after all, seeing allows you to navigate through the world without a service dog (BTW, who cleans up after a seeing eye dog anyway? - I warned you it was entertaining my brain). Navigating through the word is important. I played with a blind musician who is now a big star in France, and it was amazing that he could navigate as well as he did, snapping his fingers and listening for echoes, remembering complex turns and directions and so on. He could recognize my footsteps and say "Hi Bob" when I entered the room.

Being blind isolates you from the world. We bought a bottle of after shave that used to come in a clear glass bottle and they changed to frosted glass. So Gilbert asked "What is frosted glass" and we could not explain that to him.

So first impression was it's more important to be able to see.

Then I heard my neighbor call my name and I started thinking about hearing. Hmm, hearing works with my eyes closed, and even when I'm sleeping. More importantly, hearing works 360 degrees, not just where I'm looking. It can warn me of a danger approaching from the rear. It also is the main way to communicate with the rest of the world. After all, we are language animals.

So while being blind isolates you from the world, being deaf isolates not only is a warning device, it isolates you from other people. Imagine being deaf and that would mean I would be bottled inside myself, unable to say anything to another person unless he/she spoke sign language or I had to write things down.

So in the end, I decided that for me losing my hearing would be worse than losing my sight.

Hopefully I will lose neither.

Extended thoughts (brain likes to think). I know a person who due to a spinal cord problem, lost the feeling in her hand. She can't pick up a jellybean or salted nut from a bag without seeing it. She can't tell if the cup in the microwave is hot or not (could be dangerous). So what about losing sense of touch instead? Not good. The joys of tactile stimulation would be lost, but more importantly, the feedback on your body to the world around you.

So what's left? Smell/taste which used to be two separate senses, but are really the same. I suppose that would be the least dangerous. Of course, you could eat/drink spoiled food. So there is a safety issue there. Plus the joys of smell and taste are an important part of the human condition.

Hopefully none of us will have to sacrifice any of them.

But I don't want to hijack the thread so back on topic.

Eyes or ears for learning a piece of music?

Depends on the music and how it lends itself to be learned. If I was learning to play a Prokofiev symphony, definitely music. Learning a 12 bar blues song, probably ears.

But I think when we come down to it, whether we are music readers or not, we all use both our eyes and ears to learn music unless we are handicapped by the loss of sight.

Insights and incites by Notes (and occasional tangential ramblings)

If I were to come down with a disease, accident, latent birth defect or whatever that either rendered me totally blind or totally deaf, which would be worse? Conversely, which sense is more important?

I sort of faced both possibilities in recent years: sudden nerve deafness in right ear, then double cataract surgery, then a detached retina. I was frantic about my ear; not exactly casual about eye surgery, but my vision has been so poor all my life that I've always rather expected to go blind....

Happily my right ear is almost all the way back, and both eyes are 20/25. The ear was a far bigger deal. I think I said at the time that I'd give up both eyes to save that ear. I feel lucky to have it all -- and yes, I did just knock wood. :D .

I'm glad you healed, I'm sure that must have been terrifying.

Wow yea Crow nice to hear (no pun intended) that everything is OK